The boundaries of five different geographic areas -- North
America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia -- are digitally
represented in this collection of data files that can be used in the
production of computer maps. Each of the five areas is encoded in
three distinct files: (1) coastline, islands, and lakes, (2) rivers,
and (3) international boundaries. There is an additional file for
North America (Part 4: North America: Internal Boundaries) delineating
state lines in the United States and provincial boundaries in
Canada. The da... (more info)

The boundaries of five different geographic areas -- North
America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia -- are digitally
represented in this collection of data files that can be used in the
production of computer maps. Each of the five areas is encoded in
three distinct files: (1) coastline, islands, and lakes, (2) rivers,
and (3) international boundaries. There is an additional file for
North America (Part 4: North America: Internal Boundaries) delineating
state lines in the United States and provincial boundaries in
Canada. The data in each of the files is hierarchically structured
into subordinate geographic features and ranks, which may be used for
output plotting symbol definition. The mapping scale used to encode
the data ranged from 1:1 million to 1:4 million.

Access Notes

Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have
access to these data files.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: Because this study has many datasets, the download all files option has been suppressed, and you will need to download one dataset at a time.

(1) There are seven variables and an unknown number of
cases for each file. The number of records per case varies according
to the number of latitude and longitude coordinates needed to display
the particular geographic feature. (2) The codebook is provided by
ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format
was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using
PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on
how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR
Web site.

Methodology

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1985-10-09

Version History:

2006-01-18 File CB8376.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.